I wasn't going to go to my LCBS today as they have one of those subscription thingys where thay pull comics I buy every month and put them filed aside in a box for me. Between this week and last week there wasn't enough in the box for me to drive out there (not too far but y'know)

Is one to assume that this series begins from a "year zero" standpoint?

Not the book coming out today. The main title, Chuck Dixon's "G.I.Joe" deals with the team already fully formed and kicking ass... except there's a new enemy called Cobra, and they have to figure out who or what it is, and how to stop it. It starts in media res, figure maybe about Year Five.

Next month IDW starts it's sister title Larry Hama's "G.I.Joe Origins" which tells the story of how the team was formed and their first missions.

I don't care much for the characters drawn, and the colouring seems a bit over bearing, but the line art on the pages looks competent enough. Much better than the stuff in the early DDP issues.

I can see I'm going to be a critical fan of this series, as every step forward by IDW finds me taking two steps back. Probably just me being overly analytical and a tad cynical at this point.

Was this issue a stronger opening volley than DDp's first release? Without a doubt. Reinstated #1 read like poorly scripted fanfiction, and had the distinction of being a book with almost no plot. Talking head exposition made up everything but the first and last scene, and the artwork was both overwrought and badly directed (this has more to do with Josh's desire to age the characters to quais-geriatrics, which didn't jibe with Kurth's stylized art).

Was it better than Marvel #1... in some ways yes. Obviously, the dialogue is much improved. More a reflection of the times, Marvel #1 had the same stilted dialogue as most comics of the day. On the other hand, the mechanical nature of older comics will always have an edge over modern comics in that everything was very, very clearly stated. Colloquial speech aside, when you mesh coversational dialogue with military jargon it can become *very* confusing. Larry had a knack for the technical side of things, without making them incomprehensible.

SPOILERS!

Personally, I found myself glazing over as I read a lot of it. It's not my bag, the realistic military feel. But I get that it's popular, and I know I'll warm to it. What I was psyched about is how the issue unfolded.

From the opening scene, which felt like a repeat of the Zero Issue story when I read the preview, sits nicely as a second act in the same mystery. Someone's trying to smuggle something into the US, and Cobra's got a hand in it. From the ship, we cut to Duke and Beachhead doing some PT in the vacant desert, which ends with them entering the PIT. Here we can see the scope of their reality, and it's pretty fricken big. A little too big for me. The PIT was originally conceived as an underground bunker, six levels deep at the most. That's pretty realistic, and seems like it'd fit with IDW's press-releases that the new series would be grounded in reality. The new PIT, however, seems to be a City below the surface, with buildings that rise into the "sky, and dozens of recruits running around doing whatever... It's kind of unbelievably big.

But whatever, the plot goes directly back to the mystery, with Scarlett overseeing Shipwreck, Torpedo, and Deep Six searching and salvaging the ship from the book's opening scene. Meanwhile, the guy who owned both ships that have been sunk is attacked by a mysterious assassin. The skeevy Nico escapes, and the assassin "disappears" but leaves behind one of his very, very hi-tech guns. Enter Snake-Eyes, who sends the gun back to the PIT for analysis.

Three days later, Scarlett receives the package and, sending it off for said analysis, approves Duke and a tech team (Frostbite, Airtight and Dusty?) to attempt dissection of the thing that Shipwreck's team salvaged from the ship... but the thing has a camera... and someone's watching!

While we certainly don't have a full story here (again, a sign of the times, not something I was expecting), but there's definitely stuff *happening* here.

The biggest "stuff" is Duke and Scarlett... which I guess will pass for character development until we get the first story arc of GIJoe and Origins out of the way. But it seems to me that the two were once an item (probably will be in Origins, based on the preview in ToyFare, also released today) and have parted ways for some reason. I'm guessing the reason is a mystery we'll get backstory on as the series progresses. It'll be up to Larry, then, to give us a reason why these two should be together in the first place, so we can feel the drama of their seperation in the main series. Hopefully, Snake-Eyes has a part to play in the romance story... at some point.

So I'm giving this issue a 4 out of 5 stars. A good first part to what will inevitably be the first trade, but the extremely dense dialogue and sheer size of the PIT and GIJoe as an organization leave me cold. If, as the series progresses, these things are scaled back or explained to my satisfaction, I can see this issue retroactively earning 5 stars.

I wasn't one of those supporting a restart but i kinda grew to accepting that. The problem is I doubted it could be done in a way that would make me that happy. While i read someone else's copy of this (never got the 0 issue, my comic shop closed )

So here are some spoilers and my thoughts: Before i begin with the negative i will say that the art was great and i really enjoyed the read.

Hasbro's fault # 1 Heavy block, okay so he wasn't in this issue but that's something i can't get past. I don't think i'll ever be comfortable reading about Heavy duty in name roadblock in personality. It cheapens both characters.
Hasbro's Fault #2. Wouldn't it be nice if i could just pay a small fee and download these? i'm sure it woudl be cheaper that way and i'd be willing. But Hasbro nixed that for DDP and i'm sure it's still off the table. Hasbro could reach a wider audience that way as comic stores around are dying and so are paper comics in general.
Hasbro's Fault #3 I kinda fear them. Some of the stuff they have put their nose in in the past has really hurt the comics story (crazy subgroups in marvel, Serpentor, the nixing of the coffin one-shot for ddp) and i just don't know if i want to get wrapped up in any comic story tied to a toy anymore because in the end it's not a writer crafting a story it's a toy company letting the writer do a few things and controlling them so things don't get to far out of line with the toys. This is why i'll probably just stick to dios.
The Changes I don't like # 1: There was no need for Dial-tone to a be a female, Firewall would have fit that role nicely. I didn't like it when ddp added non figure characters most of the time either so i'm not biased against the sex change, more so the unneeded character creation.
#2 I hear Scarlet's an X0 now? where is flint? how did a woman rank that high? her position is too high and it just plain bothers me.
#3 The pit is too big. In some ways i love it and others i hate it. If the explain it's not just Joe but an area 51 like area there with weapons testing etc. I may be able to buy it but it reminds me of Stargate Atlantis.
#4 the research team? I like seeing this guys, i really do but wouldn't Hi-tech, Mainframe, Breaker and Gears make more sense?
Other: #1 scarlet still looks silly? can we have her still Lady J's cloths? please???
Other: # 2 Chimera? what? So it seems like Larry in his book fills the need to introduce a whole new group of villians. I honestly like this idea of a pre cobra and post cobra joe book. But there are so many villians i a pre cobra book could have without fighting someone new. Redshadows, Iron Klaw, Destro of course, Wraith, noks, Firefly, or even NCs could easily operate w/o cobra.
Other # 3 the price, when it hits three books that means i'll need to pay 12 a month and honestly folks i just went back to college and i'm poor

the good?
Joe has already started! I know for sure Larry's book is out for me, i don't the character choices for a start, or a new villian, but i can ignore that and i get to see tons of Fav's int he background. Did anyone catch that it looked a lot like srg. Slaughter leading the troops running? the art was great and i enjoyed looking at the page, not just reading the story. I liked the different set of operatives running around, that is how G.I.Joe has always worked in mind. You have field agents out there doing the recon work and a main team lead by duke charging in one problem at a time.

I don't really get the whole Dial Tone being a girl thing either, but other than that it seemed pretty good. My biggest complaint and this is with all comics these days not just GIJoe. This book with tax cost something like $4 and yet it seemed like the length of story you get feels like only a few pages worth. I always come away feeling like the issue is over before it even began.

I was really impressed with the zero issue, however this played off as way too grandiose. The Pit is a full underground city? Hovering robots? I wanted a special forces comic with a touch of adventure. This to me seemed too science fictiony. I think the tone of the Devil's Due series was more what I wanted to see, though I was really looking forward to something like GIJ: Reloaded. Of course, when Chuck Dixon took that over it really went downhill. I like his work elsewhere, but would prefer not to have him on this property.

Hopefully the Hama "origins" series next month, and future issues of this title, will allay my concerns.

#2 I hear Scarlet's an X0 now? where is flint? how did a woman rank that high? her position is too high and it just plain bothers me.

WOW. Misogynist much?

not really, realistic. How many woman do you know in the armed forces? officers? special ops? have combat experince? it's just highly unlikely a woman could rise to 2nd in command (and thats what it looks like) of America's top special forces group. Plus it t's me off cause that's Flint's Job. I would think you would want somebody with combat experince doing what she was doing.

I have great respect for woman, and anyone man or woman serving in the armed forces. Let's not fool ourselves though, generally men are built more combat that does not make us unequal, just different.

#2 I hear Scarlet's an X0 now? where is flint? how did a woman rank that high? her position is too high and it just plain bothers me.

WOW. Misogynist much?

not really, realistic. How many woman do you know in the armed forces? officers? special ops? have combat experince? it's just highly unlikely a woman could rise to 2nd in command (and thats what it looks like) of America's top special forces group. Plus it t's me off cause that's Flint's Job. I would think you would want somebody with combat experince doing what she was doing.

I have great respect for woman, and anyone man or woman serving in the armed forces. Let's not fool ourselves though, generally men are built more combat that does not make us unequal, just different.

There are women Generals in the US military. The first one was promoted to General in 1970.

Did not care for it.
Artwork is uneven, no better or worse than the DDP first issue--though I do like some of the covers ( and the 2nd issue covers). Artist doing it sometimes can draw people well, and sometimes can't. Glad to see backgrounds in the book, and nice to see some of the toys drawn properly. Artist cannot draw guns very well.

The PITT looks dumb.
Based on the scale of the thing, GIJOE isn't a regiment sized unit any more, it looks like a division-sized outfit with all its support folks and infrastructure. This looks like an attempt to visualize something different and not really thinking the thing through properly.
Seems like an awful lot of army sitting around waiting for something to do--and since COBRA isn't a known threat at the start--the size of the Joes makes no sense.

Story is a quick read--seems very lightweight--took about 5 minutes to take in the whole book.
Story comes across as kind of dumb, while trying to sound like it knows what its talking about--which is often par for the course with a GIJOE title.
They bring some salvaged technology INTO the PITT to examine it, but then they mention offhandedly about making sure its "safe".....duuuuuuuuuuuuuh. Of course, its not.
Soooo.......these guys supposedly know their stuff.........but they get sloppy? I doubt its a story point that'll be addressed in the future--the book doesn't come across as if something like that will be followed up on in favour of the bigger plot points.

Summed up thoughts:

Is it wrong of me to have hoped for more? Its the same ol' dull, that's been done by Marvel, Dark Horse, and Devils Due. Same dull art, same dull stories. I'm not seeing anything new here, just the same fluff shuffled around in the hopes we think it looks new.
Yea, its nice to see some of the vehicles drawn well.........but......so what? There's little to no "hook" in this book. If it had come out from DDP seven years ago, it probably would have gotten a better reception looking as it does. But now........after seven years of Joe....its just more of the same DDP stuff.

Look, to me......if the book is supposed to be based on the toys.....then make the toys the centre of its Universe. Make the thing an orgy of the toys as done on steroids.......properly drawn, and showing them doing stuff that engages the mind. I keep thinking back to the ideal GIJOE story, the Michael Golden Yearbook #2 story with the October Guard. Golden took the toys and placed them into a context. He drew real weapons and rendered the characters in an appealing manner.
Its a level of detail and attention that , IMO, made the story more immersive and engaging because it made the tangible "stuff" of GIJOE larger than life.
This IDW comic is not quite doing that yet.
I'm probably not going to wait around to see if it does.

#2 I hear Scarlet's an X0 now? where is flint? how did a woman rank that high? her position is too high and it just plain bothers me.

WOW. Misogynist much?

not really, realistic. How many woman do you know in the armed forces? officers? special ops? have combat experince? it's just highly unlikely a woman could rise to 2nd in command (and thats what it looks like) of America's top special forces group. Plus it t's me off cause that's Flint's Job. I would think you would want somebody with combat experince doing what she was doing.

I have great respect for woman, and anyone man or woman serving in the armed forces. Let's not fool ourselves though, generally men are built more combat that does not make us unequal, just different.

There are women Generals in the US military. The first one was promoted to General in 1970.

I sincerly never do but do recall the large deal that has been about women in combat and women attempting to complete schools like West Point, and it's counterparts in other branches. (which i know some have now although i don't know off the time of my head or which ones)
I would still prefer Flint in the role but i guess no argument can be made against scarlet other than questioning her field experience and since Joe has always broken that rule for the ladies i guess that i could work too.